Flunking Functionality

(From The Hartford Courant -- By Greg Sandoval)

ALEX LAM-NIEMEYER could care less that GOOGLE can churn up millions of WEB PAGES when he's researching homework assignments. Typically, he researches his reports by scouring LIBRARY STACKS, just as students have done for generations.

"There's too much stuff on the Internet," said the 12-year-old middle-schooler in BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA. "I did this one search, and it came back with 2 MILLION PAGES. It takes too long to find what you're looking for."

Against a backdrop of talking dictionaries, computerized pens, and cellphones that issue pop quizzes, parents are being promised that the latest whiz-bang gadgetry can boost their children's grade-point average and keep them from falling behind their peers. But Alex's perspective -- shared by many educational technology analysts -- is that many of these big-bucks DIGITAL TOOLS won't give the haves an advantage over classroom have-nots.

"The biggest problem that students have is that technology often ends up being a DISTRACTION," said ROBIN RASKIN, the founder and former editor of FAMILYPC MAGAZINE. "In an information society, the smart person will be the one who can SHUT OUT all the distractions."

Flunking Functionality